INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS

Zimbabwean artist Dolfi Stoki with his painting called RP 2011: 00448AC  which stands for Rhinos poached in 2011, 448 and counting.

HONORARY park rangers, police and defence force personnel have stepped forward to help patrol the Kruger National Park after rangers went on strike.

While rangers stood at the various entrance gates at the park yesterday, the park’s public relations and communications officer, William Mabasa, said contingency plans were in place to protect the park from poachers.

An estimated 240 park’s staff, the majority of whom are rangers, are striking over wage disparities, with their notice to strike saying the action would continue until such time as their demands were met. Mabasa said negotiations had deadlocked.

The issue of rhino poaching was taken to a new level as Zimbabwean artist Dolfi Stoki released a controversial painting on to the international art market to raise awareness of the plight of rhino.

The work depicts a South African R10 note, which features a rhino, but this time the rhino has its horn hacked off.

A passionate conservationist, Stoki said: “I found the idea of sitting down and painting a freshly poached rhino utterly abhorrent.

“It was only after playing with my son, who turns two in March, did the realisation hit home that the way things are going, there may not be many rhinos left in the wild. I want my son and his generation to have the privilege I had,” Stoki said of his motivation.

“Using the R10 rand note as the carrier of the message was ideal, the rhino was already there – I wanted to show people what a rhino looks like without the horn. I wanted to make a bold, powerful statement, money, blood... poaching. It is a gruesome image, and sadly it is also the reality”.

Also this week, the first heavy sentences for rhino poaching in South Africa were handed down, when three Mozambican nationals appearing in the Phalaborwa Regional Court were given 25 years after being found guilty of illegally hunting rhinos in the Kruger National Park.

They were caught with two freshly severed horns

. - Pretoria News Weekend